Kennedy Ryan on adapting her books to screen and the ‘Heated Rivalry’ effect
Kennedy Ryan headshot. (Courtesy of Kennedy Ryan)
Kennedy Ryan is bringing her beloved books to the screen.
The romance author is currently hard at work adapting the first book in her Skyland series, Before I Let Go, into a TV series for Peacock with the help of filmmaker Malcolm D. Lee.
Ryan tells ABC Audio one of the “biggest encouragements” in her book-to-screen journey has been seeing the success of Heated Rivalry, a series based on the hockey romance books by Rachel Reid.
“I think that it has done so much for our genre,” Ryan says. “I think, being very frank, I think right now in Hollywood, a lot of us feel like we’re in a climate where certain stories aren’t being told or aren’t allowed through the door. And I think Heated Rivalry was like, there are underrepresented voices, queer voices that will make room. Like if you do it right and if you put it out there, people will respond.”
Ryan hopes to continue that trend through her first-look deal with Universal, where she’ll get to bring other untold stories to the forefront. She says the deal was born out of “an organic desire to see other people’s books get the opportunity that I was getting.”
It’s an opportunity she doesn’t take for granted as she writes the Before I Let Go pilot with Lee with the hope “that people walk away from this show feeling what they felt when they read the book.”
Fans are already buzzing online with their suggestions on who should be cast, and Ryan is taking note.
“I don’t comment on them, but I’m like, furiously noting, ‘Oh, we hadn’t thought about that person! Oh my gosh, I’m adding that person to my list!’” she says.
In the meantime, her new book, Score, will be out May 19.
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in season 4 of ‘Bridgerton.’ (Liam Daniel/Netflix)
(SPOILER ALERT) Dearest gentle reader, do make haste toward your nearest Netflix account, as part 2 of Bridgerton season 4 is finally available to stream.
This fairy-tale fourth season has centered around Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and Sophie Baek’s (Yerin Ha) love story.
While there are many references to the book that inspired this season — Julia Quinn’s An Offer from a Gentleman — perhaps none were as highly anticipated as the scene where the main lovers intimately bathe together.
Thompson and Ha spoke to ABC Audio about what it was like to bring that moment to life in the season’s eighth episode.
“There was so many logistical obstacles we had to overcome that I think we just tried to have as much fun with it as possible,” Ha said. “Very quickly the pressure of getting it right and the pressure of making sure the fans were happy with it was put off to the side because we were thinking, ‘How do I stay above water?'”
Thompson laughed, before chiming in, “How do I not drown?”
The actor continued, saying although he knows fans were looking forward to the scene, he doesn’t “really buy into this idea of having to live up to anything” from the books.
“Bridgerton is absolutely a show that wants to meet the fans where they are, but is also a show that’s trying to surprise people as well and bring people where they don’t expect,” Thompson said. “I don’t feel that pressure because I think it’s not our job to deliver what people want. Our job is just to tell this story in the way that we can.”
Hayden Panettiere pictured on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
Hayden Panettiere has publicly revealed that she identifies as bisexual.
The actress shared the detail about her personal life in a new interview with Us Weekly that was published on Wednesday. In the interview, Panettiere said it was her experience writing about her life for her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, that helped her decide to share this part of herself.
“Now that I know that this book is coming out, and that I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable to confidently say that yes, I am bisexual. I said it! This is the first time I got to say it out loud,” Panettiere said.
The actress said she didn’t always know what she would be comfortable sharing about herself in the two years it took her to write the memoir. This did come up, and she decided, “Why not?”
“I’ve chosen to be completely brutally honest about this, and that’s something about me that I was never able to share with the world, because it was just never the right time,” Panettiere said.
The actress continued, detailing her attraction to women but also that she felt “afraid” to come out at first.
“I was not encouraged to just be myself,” she said. “Then it came, the period where it felt like people coming out, especially women coming out, and saying that they were bisexual or liked girls, was a fad.”
Panettiere didn’t want to be simply “jumping on the bandwagon,” as she put it, rather, she “wanted to make sure that I really sat down and chose my words carefully and was able to tell my story in an honest way, that people understood. On one hand, it’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?”
James Van Der Beek arrives at the premiere of Prime Video series ‘Overcompensating’ at Hollywood Palladium on May 14, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
James Van Der Beek, the actor best known for starring in the teen TV drama Dawson’s Creek and films including Varsity Blues, has died. He was 48.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace,” reads a note posted on Van Der Beek’s Instagram page. “There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”
Van Der Beek revealed in a November 2024 Instagram post that he’d been diagnosed with cancer, stating that despite the diagnosis he was “in a good place and feeling strong.”
Later that month, the actor further revealed to People that he was battling Stage 3 colorectal cancer. Van Der Beek shared that he received the diagnosis after a colonoscopy.
In December 2024, Van Der Beek joined Good Morning America to discuss his mindset and emotional state during his ongoing battle with the disease.
“And thus began the full-time job of having cancer, signing up for all the various medical portals and getting on the phone with insurance and creating appointments. … I was not prepared for just how much of a full-time job that it really is,” Van Der Beek said.
“I’m going to make changes that I never would have made otherwise, that I’m going to look back on in 30 years and say, ‘Thank gGod this happened.’ So, what can I do right now in order to make that the case? And that’s how it was, about 90 percent of the time,” he went on. “But 10 percent of the time, I was a sobbing, terrified mess, which I feel like is a pretty good percentage.”
Born March 8, 1977, in Cheshire, Connecticut, Van Der Beek began acting while in middle school and made his professional debut at age 16 in a 1993 off-Broadway production in New York City. He continued to appear in various amateur and professional productions throughout high school and while attending New Jersey’s Drew University.
It was while he was a student at Drew in 1998 that Van Der Beek auditioned for and won the title role of Dawson Leery in The WB network’s new show Dawson’s Creek. Van Der Beek dropped out of Drew University to star in the show for the whole of its six-year run, opposite fellow cast members and future stars Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson.
“That was when life was at its craziest,” Van Der Beek said about his time on the hit show in a 2020 interview with Good Morning America. “At 20 years old I got stupidly lucky and found myself in a zeitgeist, cultural phenomenon TV show, and I was suddenly famous.”
Van Der Beek also admitted his sudden stardom was difficult to handle. “My reaction to fame was to run away from it,” he said, though looking back he said he would tell his younger self to “relax, be grateful, enjoy it.”
Despite having already begun a small film career with roles in films like the 1996 romantic drama I Love You, I Love You Not, which also starred Claire Danes, Julia Stiles and Jude Law, Van Der Beek’s Dawson’s Creek fame earned him the headlining role in the 1999 coming-of-age sports drama Varsity Blues. Van Der Beek’s character of Jonathan “Mox” Moxon, the backup quarterback on a small-town Texas high school football team, remains the film performance for which he’s best remembered. It also earned him the best breakout male performance award at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards.
“It was a movie I really, really cared about, it was a role I really cared about,” Van Der Beek told Good Morning America. “It was a role I really had to fight for. I had to fight for that role, nobody wanted me for that role initially.”
The success of Varsity Blues led to roles in other films, including 2000’s horror film send-up Scary Movie, in which Van Der Beek made a cameo appearance as his Dawson’s Creek character, the 2001 Western Texas Rangers and the 2002 dark comedy Rules of Attraction. Later film roles included the 2009 thriller Formosa Betrayed, 2013’s Labor Day with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, and the 2019 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
Yet Van Der Beek remained a larger small-screen presence, appearing on dozens of hit TV shows over the years in starring or guest roles, including How I Met Your Mother, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, One Tree Hill,Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: Cyber and Modern Family, as well as providing the voice of Boris Hauntley on the Disney animated children’s series Vampirina. Van Der Beek also placed fifth on season 28 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars in 2019. In 2025, he was announced as a recurring character on the Legally Blonde prequel series Elle.
In September 2025, the cast of Dawson’s Creekreunited for a one-night-only live reading of the show’s pilot episode to raise money for the nonprofit F Cancer and for Van Der Beek. A stomach virus prevented him from attending in person — Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda stepped into the role of Dawson Leery in Van Der Beek’s place — but he shared a video message in which he thanked those who attended and shared his disappointment for not being unable to “stand on that stage and thank every soul in the theater for showing up for me, and against cancer, when I needed it most.”
Van Der Beek was married twice. He’s survived by his wife, film producer Kimberly Van Der Beek, and their six children.
